The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been able to contact the last Dutch people in Slovenia who could not be reached after the storm that swept the country. Friends and family asked for help because they couldn’t get hold of these people. The acute problems of the Dutch in the affected area seem to have been resolved.
Most of the affected Dutchmen were cared for in a school in Rečica ob Savinji, a village northeast of the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana. Most of them have already gone home. As previously announced, more than ninety Dutch people in the area will be evacuated by bus on Sunday.
ACSI Camping Trips has about two hundred guests camping in the area. The organization confirmed again on Sunday that they are all safe. The same goes for the seventeen guests TUI Netherlands has there.
Embassy staff in the area assessed the severe damage caused by the heavy rains and floods. In the camps they saw upside down caravans. Slovenia is a popular holiday destination for the Dutch.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not have an accurate picture of the number of Dutch people in Slovenia. It is a member state of the European Union to which Dutch citizens can travel without border controls. Not everyone follows the advice to inform the embassy via an app that they are in the country.
Four people died from the storm in Slovenia, including two Dutch citizens from Gouda. A dam broke in the east of the country on Saturday night, after which people were evacuated.
Slovenia’s emergency services will also be full on Sunday with the aftermath of the storm. Rescuers had to be out Saturday night into Sunday pumping water, evacuating people, removing fallen trees and delivering emergency supplies.
According to Slovenian media, there are also warnings about possible landslides. Because of this danger, at least 110 people had to be brought to safety near Korochka Bella and other places in the border area with Austria. In the town of Dolnja Bistrica, about five hundred residents were evacuated on Saturday night after a dam burst. (AP)
